Group Nine Media — and other digital-only publishers like it — have become the ire of many major legacy publishers. They swallow up massive amounts of video views and shares on social media, but still struggle with branding and maintaining a loyal audience. Group Nine is taking a page out of magazine media’s engagement playbook by exploring events and launching its own a creative agency. But magazine media should consider taking a page out of Group Nine’s for its ability to distribute shareable media at scale.

Group Nine has a portfolio of four brands: NowThis (news), Thrillist (food, drink and travel), The Dodo (animal lovers) and Seeker (science and tech), thus giving it a nice buffet of audiences for advertisers. And its full-service internal creative agency — Alchemy — is responsible for creating custom content for each of these properties.

“We’re advertiser-supported and our basic business model is about telling stories for brands,” Group Nine President Eric Ashman, tells min. “We created Alchemy so we could make branded video, big experiential offline events and, we don’t do this as much, but we can even create custom products for sale.” Still, this is a digital-only company, so exactly how successful this endeavor is remains in question. Ashman declined to comment whether the company is profitable. “We’re in growth mode right now,” he says. The company formed last December following a $100 million investment from Discovery. “We don’t talk about profitability at this point.”

In nine months, Group Nine has become a top 10 Tubular publisher, delivering nearly five billion videos views every month. And the company is seeing over 115 million social engagements every month (up from 70 million in January).

Ashman, who was president of Thrillist prior to the brand’s acquisition by Group Nine, says, “what I’m focused on right now is building bigger and bigger engaged audiences and creating more extensions within those brands.”

At this point, very little of Group Nine’s content is syndicated. Ashman says that his brands have mastered the ability to find audiences across the platforms, leveraging the social “pipes” (Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube, etc.) to achieve massive reach and engagement.

“For us, most important is creating great content, building brands that matter and then doing it at scale,” Ashman stumps. “Then, what Alchemy can do is meet with advertisers, learn their goals and then help them tell stories that’ll achieve their messaging goals.”

And although many digital-only brands are still on their way to profitability, they’re already taking a massive bite out of the attention economy. Legacy publishers should rightfully be aware of the engagement numbers brands like The Dodo and NowThis rack up.

Where companies like Group Nine thrive is in the attention they pay to their audiences. “Last month, for example, we launched “NowThis Money” in response to a need we observed from our audience for informative content specifically targeted towards young people and their finances,” Ashman says.

Soon, The Dodo will also be launching a sub-brand for kids called Little Dodo. In addition to new content categories, Group Nine is also delving into new formats. For example, Thrillist just launched its first longer-form YouTube series, “Food/Groups” and Seeker will soon be partnering with Everest VR to launch “Seeker Mode” within the experience.

]]>http://www.foliomag.com/group-nine-proves-scale-and-personalization-can-coexist/feed/0Forbes CTO Jumps to Hearst Magazines | People on the Movehttp://www.foliomag.com/hearst-magazines-digital-appoints-cto-people-move-8-17-17/
http://www.foliomag.com/hearst-magazines-digital-appoints-cto-people-move-8-17-17/#commentsThu, 17 Aug 2017 13:33:43 +0000http://www.foliomag.com/?p=101401Shape and The Fader overhaul creative teams, New York Media hires a video director, Modern Luxury makes several appointments, and more...

]]>Hearst Magazines Digital Media (HMDM) has appointed Michael Dugan chief technology officer. As CTO, Dugan will oversee the company’s global media management platform, and will be responsible for the management of all aspects of the company’s technical organization.

“Mike is a seasoned leader with a proven track record in the media tech space,” says Troy Young, global president of HMDM in a statement. “His knowledge and expertise will be invaluable as we continue to develop new platforms and systems that leverage our understanding of our content, our growing knowledge of our audience and our aggressive commerce strategy to create unique value for both users and advertisers.”

Dugan most recently worked as CTO at Forbes, where he spent 16 years.

Meredith’s Shape has announced Noah Dreier as creative director. Dreier will oversee the brand’s design direction, including visual, editorial and layout concepts. He most recently served as art director of Glamour.

As part of an expansion of its creative team, The Fader named Trevor Eld chief creative officer, reporting directly to co-founders Rob Stone and Jon Cohen. Eld joins from ad agency R/GA, where he spent the last decade, most recently as executive creative director. Rounding out Eld’s team are the following new hires:

• Steve Caputo, a fellow R/GA veteran, as executive creative director.•Grace Gordon, former brand director at Refinery29 and senior planner at Apple, as VP of strategy.•Louis Philippe-Riel as creative director.

Fritzie Andrade (pictured)has been appointed director of video at New York Media. Most recently, Andrade worked as executive video director at Gizmodo Media Group.

American Media Inc. has named Jen Peros managing editor of Us Weekly, where she will also work on Star, Ok!, the National Enquirer,Globe, and the National Examiner, plus digital brands like Radar Online. Peros was formerly news editor of Us Weekly, and left the magazine in 2015 to work at “Entertainment Tonight” as senior news editor. She returns to the brand as managing editor in late August.

Elle.com has promoted several members of its editorial staff. R. Eric Thomas, formerly columnist, has been named senior writer, Sally Holmes, formerly deputy editor, has been promoted to executive editor, and Gena Kaufman, formerly social media director, has been appointed director, social media and special projects.

Modern Luxury has announced a series of promotions within its executive and editorial departments:

•Beth Berman Cohen was named group publisher for the Washington D.C market.•Michael Clements joins Capitol File as editor in chief.•Tina Borgatta continues as editor in chief of Modern Luxury Orange County, and now adds group executive editor to her role at the company.

Additionally, the company promoted:

•Andrea Bennett to group editor, overseeing Vegas, Wynn, and Wynn Macau, as well as Modern Luxury San Diego.•Ray Dennison to editor in chief of Houston.•Kristen Schott to editor in chief of Modern Luxury Weddings California.•And Faye Power to fashion director custom publishing and branded content.

Maura Egan has been named executive editor of Departures. Egan formerly worked as features director at both T Magazine and W. She begins her new position next week.

Time Inc. has announced Lori Leibovich as editor in chief of Health, where she will manage content and editorial operations for the brand, as well as digital platforms. Most recently, Leibovich served as the company’s digital director of women’s content.

Renee Rupcich has been named design director at Women’s Health, starting next week. She joins from Allure, where she most recently served as design director.

Mic has named Sarah Iooss executive vice president of revenue, where she will lead the expansion of products and branded content. Iooss joins Mic from a 15-year run at Viacom, where she served as SVP of business development.

Josh Gluck has been named chief operating officer of theSkimm, the daily newsletter. Most recently, Gluck served as VP of strategy and business development at Barnes &Noble.

Bustle Digital Group has named Daniela Quint VP of Midwest Sales, where she will be responsible for the management of the Chicago and Detroit markets. Quint most recently worked as regional director of Midwest sales at Mashable.

2017 has been a year of continued transformation in the mass-market magazine space, and 95-year-old, mission-driven publications whose readerships boast many of the world’s most influential figures are no exception.

With both readers and advertisers exhibiting a growing appetite for digital media products, Harvard Business Review began the year by adjusting its print magazine — which remains the brand’s “crown jewel,” according to editor-in-chief Adi Ignatius — reducing frequency from 10 issues per year down to six, and redesigning the look and feel of the book.

The goal of the redesign, says Ignatius, was the same as the goal behind all of HBR‘s offerings: to create a premium reading experience worthy of an annual subscription’s $99 price tag.

“The magazine is thicker, the quality of the paper is better, there are more pages. Print is very important to us and to our readers,” Ignatius tells Folio:. “We are declining in frequency, and increasing the number of digital articles, but we wanted to communicate that print is still a very important premium part of our offering.”

To help fill the gaps in a reduced publishing schedule, HBR launched “The Big Idea,” a digital series recurring six times per year — in the off-months between each print issue — consisting of articles and other features all centered around one topic (recent examples include generosity burnout, corporate inequality, and AI). Ignatius likens it to a kind of hybrid storytelling, both a digital expression of a print magazine but also something that takes advantage of its place in a multimedia environment.

Part of the idea behind The Big Idea was the recognition that HBR’s best customers are those that engage with both print and digital content — “they’re our biggest fans” — but Ignatius adds that it also represented a way to maintain an ongoing relationship with readers in those months in which a print issue does not arrive.

“Losing four issues per year, I wanted to make sure we had the opportunity to provoke conversation the way a good magazine cover story does,” says Ignatius. “Magazine covers still have that special power. That was the real reason, to make sure we could still do that more than six times per year in print.”

Adi Ignatius

Ignatius admits he braced himself for pushback from the brand’s print loyalists. Preceding the shift was an outreach campaign to readers explaining the value and “the totality” of what constitutes an HBR subscription — in addition to the magazine, unlimited access to HBR‘s robust archives, including its top 50 articles, email newsletters, and customizable slide decks and infographics.

“We needed to communicate that you are getting more, even though we are reducing the number of print issues.”

Evidently, the message was communicated effectively. Ignatius says the team heard from fewer than a dozen total readers who cancelled as a result of the shift.

“It was almost hurtful,” he jokes.

Part of replicating that print experience online meant convincing HBR‘s contributors — most often academics — to write a digital-only article when they may prefer to write for print, but it’s also meant bringing in new voices, like former Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson, who contributed a nearly 4,000-word May piece on “the drone economy.”

That story was in line with Ignatius’s strategy of selecting topics for The Big Idea that are “close to core, but maybe extend from our core,” bringing in new readers — and, ultimately, new subscribers.

“We’ve always aimed our content at the C-suite, but we also learned that a lot of the content we produce is about managing yourself and managing your career.”

Ignatius says this appeals to younger professionals who are taking on managerial roles, a broader definition of HBR‘s audience than in years past, but something he says reflects a modern dynamic of people no longer working with one company for their entire careers.

Six months in, the pivot appears to be working. Harvard Business Review‘s paid circulation jumped 10.2 percent in the first half of 2017, eclipsing 300,000 subscribers for the first time, and the brand claims that both advertising and newsstand sales are up as well. But when it comes to readership, Ignatius says he values quality over quantity.

“We are up over 300,000 circ for the first time, and you want to grow it a little bit, but you don’t want to be too much more than that,” he adds. “I’ve learned that Harvard Business Review has a very engaged reader base. We’re paying a lot more attention to readers’ needs and finding new ways to interact with them. We’re honing the product in ways that are aimed at connecting with them more effectively.”

J.D. Vance, in his compelling bestseller, “Hillbilly Elegy,” traces with sorrow the “learned helplessness” of hillbilly life. In this case, I thought his book and the use of the word elegy seemed appropriate for helping describe what has transpired at the newsstand in the last decade.

First Half Sales Decline at Record Rate

The newsstand sales of audited publications in the first half, as reported by the Alliance for Audited Media (AAM), revealed a record annual unit sales decline of 18.2 percent to 106.4 million and a revenue fall of 14.2 percent to $478.5 million.

An 18.2 percent unit sales decline is, of course, gigantic — the largest ever experienced by audited consumer magazines. It does, however, require a note of explanation. The analysis in this piece is based on comparing current period sales with sales data from the year previous period. This differs from the AAM comparison, which compares data from the previous year period for only titles reporting in the current period, but not for publications that resigned from the audit bureau during the period.

For purposes of this analysis, this distinction makes a difference because of the record number of titles (35) that posted sales in the first half of 2016, but resigned during the year. Among the titles that resigned were: Maxim, Prevention, Self, and Vegetarian Times. If the sales data from these titles (representing unit sales of about 3 million in the previous period) had been excluded from the analysis, the unit sales decline would have been 2 points lower — or about 16.2 percent. Said another way, the unit sales decline of continuing publications in the first half of this year was about 16.2 percent.

Any way you look at it, the sales decline of audited consumer magazines in the first half of this year was devastating. There were hardly any bright spots. Every multi-titled publisher, except National Geographic, took a serious sales licking.

2017 Marks the End of a Decade of Newsstand Futility

The weak first half sales marked a fitting close to a decade of chilling newsstand futility. In 2007 (10 years ago), the year before the economic crash of 2008, newsstand sales revenue of audited publications reached their peak (over $3.2 billion) and unit sales, although continuously declining since the 1980’s, stood at a robust 932 million.

In 2007, life was pretty darn good at the newsstand. But the ensuing decade has brought nothing but grief and disappointment to the embattled newsstand channel. During this 10-year period, unit sales of audited titles have fallen on average 13 percent per year. For the decade, unit sales are down 77.1 percent and revenue is off 70.5 percent.

Think about it this way: Unit sales and revenue of audited titles in 2017 are 4.3 and 3.5 times, respectively, less than they were 10 years ago. In effect, the newsstand channel is only a quarter of its 2007 self.

Can the Newsstand Channel Survive?

Publishers (and wholesalers) must now address the question they’ve been successfully avoiding for years: Can the newsstand channel survive a decade long revenue decline of this severity?

The answer is a qualified yes.

Most knowledgable observers believe that archaic newsstand channel practices have contributed to, if not exacerbated, the decline. This is undoubtedly true. But over the years, fixing the system has proved to be elusive — primarily because this seemingly simple business is actually, at its core, quite complex. It’s a business not like any other.

The problem is not getting the products distributed and displayed, but rather accounting for all those damn returns. Return processing and accounting concerns have created a toxic lack of trust among channel participants. This lack of trust is the key factor in preventing the channel parties from working toward equitable reform.

Major Publishers Hold the Key for Survival

The channel can only survive if the channel parties set aside their individual grievances and work in concert toward affecting channel reform. However, one of the channel groups has to step forward to assume reform leadership. In this case the responsibility realistically falls to publishers, the group that, arguably, has the most to lose if the channel fails.

It’s vital to understand that only a small set of publishing companies will determine the fate of the newsstand. Until recently, eight publishing companies dominated the industry. However, recent events have eliminated Rodale and Wenner from the newsstand leadership ranks. The fate of the newsstand now largely rests with six publishing companies: American Media, Bauer, Time Inc., Hearst, Condé Nast, and Meredith. Among audited publications, these companies control nearly 90 percent of unit sales and over 84 percent of revenue.

Changes at the Top of the Publisher Newsstand Hierarchy

Time Inc., the de facto newsstand leader for many years, now appears to be in a hasty retreat. Although the company is apparently no longer for sale, they are pursuing a vigorous cost-cutting strategy. This includes selling off a number of their less significant titles, reducing frequency on some of their weekly publications, and selling or outsourcing their massive fulfillment operation. It’s possible this could also signal their withdrawal as a national distributor.

Time Inc. has a checkered history of newsstand leadership. To their credit they tried to introduce channel reform, but it wasn’t accepted by the industry. Over time, they have become better known for feathering their own nest, rather than forging needed channel reform. They’ve had their shot. Now they’ll have to make way for an unlikely set of new newsstand leaders: American Media and Bauer.

American Media vaulted to the top of the audited publication newsstand revenue heap (see chart above) with their acquisitions of Us Weekly and Men’s Journal from Wenner Media. Bauer’s place at the top of the newsstand hierarchy is based on the sheer volume of their unit sales, which now represent a massive 32 percent of all audited publications units sold. Every third audited publication sold at the newsstand is a Bauer title.

However, American Media and Bauer are untested industry leaders. In fact they have, for years, been the industry mavericks. But if necessity is the mother of invention, the industry may have inadvertently discovered the right set of leaders. More than any of the other major publishers, they are fully committed to the newsstand by virtue of their large portions of newsstand circ. If the newsstand grows more dysfunctional, and it’s heading in that direction, the other four major publishers — including Time Inc. — should be able to survive.

But an increasingly dysfunctional newsstand channel could spell doom for American Media and Bauer. These two publishers have made a huge bet on the newsstand. If they’re smart, and we know they are, they will do what’s necessary for their self preservation – which means helping lead much needed newsstand reform efforts.

Hope for a Positive Newsstand Elegy

J.D. Vance expressed hope that the “learned helplessness” of his people could be replaced by harnessing community power. When the newsstand elegy poem is written, it’s hoped that the two former industry mavericks will be saluted for helping the newsstand community get its groove back.

]]>http://www.foliomag.com/newsstand-elegy-first-half-newsstand-sales-continue-atrophy-record-rate/feed/0Determining Your Mission: Views from the C-Suitehttp://www.foliomag.com/john-french-interview/
http://www.foliomag.com/john-french-interview/#commentsTue, 15 Aug 2017 16:24:45 +0000http://www.foliomag.com/?p=101159[Sponsored] An interview with John French on media management, private equity, and improving sales and revenue.

]]>At the Magazine Innovation Center’s ACT7 Experience in Oxford, Miss. in April, John French delivered one of the best speeches I have ever heard on publishing industry issues, “Life Lessons in Adding Value.”

John is the former CEO of Cygnus Business Media, the former CEO of Penton, and the former president of business magazines and media at Primedia. John has a unique perspective on publications now because he is a turnaround expert who does confidential M&A work as well. He now shares his experience as an advisor to publishing executives and investors.

I asked him and he agreed to be interviewed for my company newsletter, Ads&IDEAS®. However, as we spoke, John touched on so many points I thought would be of interest to publishers and CEOs of publishing organizations that I didn’t want to limit the audience to just my readers. Folio: agreed to feature a few of the most interesting points here.

Enjoy an abridged and lightly edited version of the interview below.

John French

Jim Elliott: What steps do you take to turn around a publishing company that’s in trouble?

John French: So, the first thing you determine is: What’s the mission? Why are we here? Is it because you want to improve the operating margin? Do you want to improve the performance of the company? Do you want to transform the management team away from the old ways of publishing and to more data and digital? Do you want to package it and, frankly, dress it up to sell it?

Let’s establish what the goal is and the plan falls from there. Then you drop in the operating goals; the first thing you do is assess your portfolio. You can’t control all these portfolios or assets, so you must take what you got and make it work.

Jim: What if your client has enough of a budget to make acquisitions?

John: I tell my client, “Let’s really understand how this is going to improve your portfolio. How does it fit into your strategic plan? How is the integration going to go? How long will it go? And bring up all the challenges. That’s the proper way to go with M&A — let’s go to the internal diligence first and see if that is really what we want to buy.”

Jim: What about programmatic?

John: The first question is not whether I accept programmatic advertising. The first question is, “Why do I have unsold inventory?” And if you have many months’ old inventory and you’re running content that people are not reading and that advertisers are not supporting, then let’s have a discussion about that before you run to programmatic. That’s what I see a lot on the digital side of the business. People are chasing rainbows here rather than taking a look at that fundamental core digital business and then growing it smartly from there.

Jim: What is your approach to assessing and improving publishing management teams?

John: It’s a difficult task to assess management because it gets emotional, especially if you have to make really tough choices with really nice people. I struggled with that early in my career. We establish a list of people on the management team. There are two columns: people that you know add value and people who are currently not adding value to the enterprise and the growth and the turnaround. And the people not adding value presently, you show them how to do it, you help them, you support them, and if they still don’t get it, get rid of them. That’s the only way.

Jim: What are some steps that publishing executives can take to increase revenue?

John: The first thing is to take the blinders off about where you think your revenue is going to come from. Often, you get, “Digital.” Well wait a minute. Maybe it’s just not digital. Maybe you’re doing okay on digital. The point is, treat all revenue the same; don’t run away from print and certainly don’t run away from the other end of the spectrum, which is data and data products. It’s all one channel; it’s all one pipeline. So don’t dismiss what you consider or believe to be old line technology to increase revenue.

If you want to replace revenue right away, go to your circulation file — your audience development file of your magazine — and make sure that you know, or can know, or should at some point know, everything about that subscriber. Tools to find these things out are not as expensive as they used to be.

Jim: How do you convince a board or a private equity board to follow your plan?

John: When you’re talking to a board, or a private equity board, or you’re talking to a private ownership group, you actually have to carry that passion and you can’t waiver at all. You cannot show weakness. If you really believe it, you have to be willing to put your neck on the line.

Good ownership, especially the private equity guys, can sniff weakness. They get good at it. You can smell when someone doesn’t have the great belief, so it’s passion, Number One. Number Two, you need to be patient and you may come up with an idea three or four times and get shot down for the idea three or four times, but if you really believe it, stay true.

Jim: How do you see the role of today’s CEO, COO, or Executive Director?

John: I think the biggest change I’ve seen is that it used to be easy [for a CEO or Executive Director] to delegate a lot of things. You kind of set the course and steered your plan. You still have to do all that. You have to have a vision. You have to have a belief and all that stuff. But let’s face it, you and I are running companies that are challenged by changes in technology. I used to feel comfortable saying I’m going to delegate that decision to my “tech person.” A CEO doing that today is making a serious mistake.

Jim: How do you improve a sales force?

John: In most companies people who are making those decisions become frozen and they can’t make the tough decisions. Management frequently tells me they would only rehire about 30 percent of their current salesforce. That doesn’t compute. Why?

I’ve seen so many situations where I’d say, “You know, we’ve done a full analysis of Jim. And we’ve worked with him. And we tried, but he’s not going to turn the coin. So, we need to get rid of him. We need to make a change.” And — this drives me absolutely crazy — they will come back and say, “I agree with you 100 percent, but it’s account XYZ … that’s his account and if we lose that, it’s a half million dollars and it changes our whole fiscal year.”

I’ve never seen [a situation] where a salesperson leaves and the account says, “Well, that’s it. Jim’s gone. I’m going to pull our $500,000 – $600,000 contract.” There was never any value to the contract to begin with if that was going to happen.

Jim: Do you care if your sales staff is direct or outside independent?

John: No, I don’t care. And it’s not just because it’s good for you, Jim. I don’t care; I’m agnostic there. When I was a publisher, sales manager, etc., I actually found it easier and more productive to manage outside sales reps than direct reps. And the reason being was, very simply, compensation.

]]>http://www.foliomag.com/john-french-interview/feed/0Condé Nast is Moving to Brooklyn — Kind of | Industry Noteshttp://www.foliomag.com/conde-nast-moving-brooklyn-kind-industry-notes/
http://www.foliomag.com/conde-nast-moving-brooklyn-kind-industry-notes/#commentsThu, 10 Aug 2017 20:41:51 +0000http://www.foliomag.com/?p=100999A new home for the Food Innovation Group, a new Seal for Good Housekeeping, and a timely reminder for journalists when to (and not to) press record.

A little under two years ago, Time Inc. followed fellow magazine giant Condé Nast in relocating its headquarters from Midtown Manhattan downtown to the Financial District, renting a 700,000 foot space spanning eight floors at 225 Liberty St., just across the street from Condé’s One World Trade Center digs.

Now, Condé Nast is returning the favor.

By this November, the publisher intends to open a 6,300-square foot video production studio for its Food Innovation Group — which consists of the brands Bon Appetit and Epicurious, among others — in Brooklyn’s Industry City, the same location where Time Inc. opened its own content studio, The Foundry, in late 2015.

The space will house “state-of-the-art kitchen and video facilities,” according to a statement from Industry City, whose current tenants also include Serious Eats, The Brooklyn Rail, Bust magazine, and Publicis Group’s creative studio, Prodigious.

Led by Giulio Capua since Pamela Drucker Mann was promoted to CMO as part of the company’s most recent shakeup, the Food Innovation Group claims to reach an audience of 86 million across print and digital.

To record or not to record?

From Eric Bolling to Anthony Scaramucci, Wednesday was quite a day for threats of legal action against reporters brought by Wall Street traders-turned-political commentators.

To recap: On Wednesday morning, Fox News host Eric Bolling brought a $50 million defamation suit against Yashar Ali, a contributor to HuffPost, New York magazine, and Mother Jones, among others, in response to Ali’s report citing a dozen sources claiming that Bolling had sent unwanted lewd texts and photos to female colleagues several years ago. Fox News has suspended Bolling pending an investigation.

Then, Wednesday evening, short-lived White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci emulated his former boss by taking to Twitter to call The New Yorker‘s Washington correspondent, Ryan Lizza, “the Linda Tripp of 2017″ for secretly recording the bizarre July 26 phone call Scaramucci placed to him and publishing a transcript — an act which, ultimately, led to Scaramucci’s dismissal from the Trump administration after ten days on the job.

When another user replied asking Scaramucci if he was accusing Lizza of taping the call without his permission, Mooch replied, “Yes. He absolutely taped the call without my permission. #lowlife.”

Lizza may have cost himself a friend, but from a legal standpoint, in neither Washington, D.C., nor New York was he required to obtain Scaramucci’s consent or even notify him before recording the call or releasing the transcript. Both jurisdictions are under one-party consent laws, meaning only one party to the phone call need consent to a recording for the act to be legal.

The lesson here, for journalists, (and the beauty of America) is that different states operate under different laws. To avoid liability, reporters — particularly those who cover beats in California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, or a handful of other states with tighter restrictions — ought to be aware of what they can and can’t do when communicating with sources across state lines.

From the job board…

The American Library Association seeks a full-time, Chicago-based senior editor for Booklist, the association’s print and digital magazine and book review portal. The ideal candidate possesses at least five years of relevant experience as well as a Master of Library Science degree. Salary negotiable.

Move over, Charity Navigator.

For more than a century, since before the days of prohibition and the outbreak of World War I, the Good Housekeeping Seal has served as a trusted beacon for discerning homemakers seeking quality-tested consumer products for themselves and their families.

Today, 106 years after debut of the original Good Housekeeping Seal, the Hearst-owned brand announced the introduction of a new badge of honor: the Good Housekeeping Humanitarian Seal, intended to help guide consumers deciding which charities to support, much in the same way the original seal helps them evaluate which products to purchase.

“The GH Humanitarian seal allows us to raise awareness about the importance of being kind to others, and honor organizations … that are working tirelessly and selflessly to make a meaningful impact,” said editor-in-chief Jane Francisco in a statement.

In response to the logical question of just how Good Housekeeping is qualified to evaluate the legitimacy of various charities, Hearst Magazines added, in the statement, that staff consulted with financial and legal experts, as well as “seasoned consultants in the fields of nonprofit governance, social responsibility, and charitable giving” to determine the criteria — which include financial stability, accountability, and transparency — for bestowing the Humanitarian Seal upon an organization.

The first charity to receive the honor is WE Charity (formerly known as Free the Children), a 12-year-old Toronto-based organization focused on promoting education and youth empowerment throughout both North America and the developing world. Since its founding, the organization, says Good Housekeeping, has provided more than one-million people with clean water, built 1,000 schools, and provided more than 200,000 children access to education.

“After a rigorous 10-step evaluation process carried out over several months … WE met and even surpassed our intense criteria,” added Good Housekeeping Institute director Laurie Jennings in the statement. “Like other GH Seal stars, we support WE Charity, and feel confident anyone who contributes their time or dollars can trust it will be used in the most meaningful and responsible way.”

]]>Popular Science’s latest redesign appears to be paying off, sparking a surge in the brand’s traffic, newsstands sales and an overall audience growth of 31.5 percent year over year.

The magazine’s success falls under the fourth issue headed by newly appointed editor-in-chief Joe Brown (pictured), who started his position about a year ago.

Brown says that the single-topic per print issue, which was his pitch when applying for the job, has received positive feedback from PopSci readers, reflected in a significant increase in newsstand sales — particularly for the March/April issue, which sold 38.3 percent more copies than the same issue last year, according to a company statement.

“Magazines occupy a different place in our culture now; print can’t compete with digital media at delivering of-the-moment information. But they’re wonderful keepsakes,” Brown tells Folio:. “Our single-topic approach allows our issues to stay relevant for longer; the goal is that if a reader picks up an issue up in 5 years, she can still enjoy the collection of stories without feeling like she’s reading something outdated.”

Brown explained that the process for the single-topic per issue format looks very different from that of traditional magazines. Instead of picking a cover based on their strongest feature, the PopSci team works backwards, first brainstorming on an issue theme, then moving to stories. After that, the editors try to narrow in on “which subjects are must-dos, which can be combined, and so on.”

With a shift to a single-topic per issue layout, PopSci also faces a significant aesthetic redesign, changing the actual look and feel of the magazine.

“We needed a framework on which to build the central narrative of the issue; when you’re basing an entire magazine around a single idea, no matter how broad, you need to make it easy for a reader to relate no matter when they come in,” says Brown. “Visually, we tuned the look to be more timeless.”

The editorial and aesthetic redesign appears to be resonating with readers, particularly with the March/April issue, which was entirely centered on “the state of water in our world.”

“The water issue was a fantastic magazine—one of the best I’ve ever worked on, and a bar I’ll probably aspire to for the rest of my career,” Brown tells Folio:. “There was an electric excitement coursing through the office during the making of that issue; it was crazy… the cover was a home run; our design team, in collaboration with The Voorhes really delivered.”

In addition to an increase in newsstands sales, PopSci.com has expanded its digital audience, with pageviews up by 58 percent year over year in June, according to a company statement.

“There is a lot of noise out there, with everyone racing to add a micro-spin on the same stories every day,” says Brown. We’ve been focused on telling original stories with original reporting and staying out of the churn. Our signal is high, and readers are picking it up.”

With a sizable digital and social presence, Brown says that the website has started to expand to its audience base.

“Over the past 8 months, we’ve shifted from 26% female readers to a split that hovers right around 50/50,” he says. “I’m really proud of that.”

Looking forward, Brown says that the PopSci team will continue to focus on quality.

“We’re going to push even harder on quality, because that’s how we define ourselves: We push harder to write better stories,” Brown tells Folio:. “We may not be the biggest staff in media, but nobody is going to outthink, outwork, or out-hustle us—or have more fun doing it.”

]]>Hearst Magazines has announced Jon Gluck as executive director, editorial talent, development and special projects. Starting in early September, he will oversee senior-level editorial recruitment for Hearst Magazines’ new launches and print brands, as well as magazine development. Gluck formerly served as managing editor of Vogue.

“To say that the industry is going through an exciting period of change is an understatement,” says David Carey, president of Hearst Magazines in a statement. “Jon will play a central role in the transformation of our U.S. media business, both as we evolve our existing businesses, and acquire and start new ones.”

“In addition to identifying and fostering talent, Jon will help create new brands and partnerships and strengthen existing ones as we double-down on development,” says chief content officer Joanna Coles in a company statement. “Following on the success of our premiere issues of The Pioneer Woman and Airbnbmag, we’re more focused than ever on accelerating the process from idea to introduction.”

Additionally, Hearst Magazines Digital Media (HMDM) has appointed Roselle Schjong as senior director of research and insights. Schjong formerly worked as the executive director of insights and sales services at Condé Nast.

Here are the rest of this week’s people on the move…

The Nation has named Steph Burt (pictured) and Carmen Giménez Smith poetry editors, starting in mid-September. Both newly named editors are authors, with several titles to their name. Burt is a professor of English at Harvard University, while Giménez Smith is a professor of English at Virginia Tech.

Garrett Kai has been promoted to Vice President, General Manager of Agency Services at Bonnier Corp. In his new position, Kai will help expand the company’s agency services offerings throughout the country. He most recently headed the company’s Motorcycle Group in-house marketing agency, QuickShift.

CNN has hired Hadas Gold, where she will cover the European politics, media and business beat. Gold joins CNN from POLITICO, where she served as a media and political reporter for the last five years.

Informa Marketing Services has named John Ecke VP of products and Scott Harris VP of sales enablement. Ecke formerly served as VP, digital products at Penton Ag, while Harris most recently worked as VP, sales and marketing at IDG TechNetwork.

Yahoo Finance has hired Amanda Fung as editor. Fung joins Yahoo Finance from Crain’s New York Business, where she served as web editor.

HMP Communications has appointed Hilary Gates as program director of EMS World Expo, a conference and trade show for EMS professionals. Gates serves as a paramedic in Alexandria, Virgina and is also a freelance writer and adjunct professor.

]]>A few days ago I received Howard Rauch’s new book, “Get Serious About Editorial Management,” in the mail (the old mail —physical mail — so now I have a hard copy).

For the last several decades, first as a rising editor at two B2B media companies and during a long stint as VP/editorial director of Gralla Publications before founding a consultancy, Howard has been one of just a handful of voices focused on the study of day-to-day editorial work in B2B media.

Howard Rauch

Particularly since founding Editorial Solutions, a Tenafly, New Jersey-based editorial firm in 1989, Howard has helped drive an important conversation about B2B editorial skills and standards. He mostly focuses on quantitative measurement, in every conceivable facet of the business. He homes in on specific tactical approaches for a whole array of activities, from business travel to tradeshow planning, and from the importance of infographics to whether an editor-in-chief should also be a brand’s top writer (Howard says yes).

Howard’s forte is content-creation nuts-and-bolts, for sure. I used to be skeptical of trying to assess editorial performance based on, say, the number of stories an editor produced, or how long it took per story to write. I felt like that excluded the qualitative aspect.

Howard says they coexist peacefully. I learned this when I got my first professional newspaper job. In college, I could get away with saying “quality takes time.” In the professional world, I quickly learned that wasn’t the way things worked—you need quality and speed. Without it, you’re basically finished.

The more you dig into Howard’s philosophies and his recommendations, the more you realize that it’s just an explicit expression of proper work habits and management techniques, expressed and applied specifically for the world of B2B content creation. That’s an under-analyzed area of journalism, so any empirical study is worthwhile, and Howard’s is excellent.

In fact, with the ascendency of measurement and analytics in digital content creation, you can conclude with a great degree of accuracy that Howard Rauch was the original advocate for performance metrics.

What’s Howard look at? In his book, he proposes standards for original writing, for editing, for conducting interviews, searching for stories, and much more. He suggests optimum frequencies for business travel, for getting out in the market, for team training, for public speaking.

But because it’s a management book, it deals in depth with some of the issues that content-creation managers have, including:

Causes and symptoms of editorial burnout.

Evaluations and feedback.

Promoting and marketing the brand’s content.

Assessing true editorial superiority.

Competing with established brands.

There’s much more in the book too. It’s a quick read, and if you’re doing your job as an editorial leader well, you may find a lot of affirmation. If you’re still learning the ropes as a manager, or as a B2B editor at a more junior level, then this book is also well worth reading.

Time Inc. president and CEO Rich Battista described plans for an aggressive cost-cutting initiative Tuesday morning after reporting revenue declines on both the print and digital sides of the business in Q2 2017.

Company revenue fell 10 percent year-over-year to $694 million over the three months ended June 30. Circulation returns dropped 12 percent to $207 million, primarily driven by a 22 percent drop in newsstand revenue, while print advertising — still the largest revenue driver for the company by a wide margin — dipped 17 percent to $249 million.

Perhaps most alarming to Battista and his team, however, is the two-percent dip in digital advertising revenue, to $125 million, contributing to an overall advertising revenue decline of 12 percent.

“We have already targeted more than $400 million of run-rate cost savings, with the majority of initiatives expected to be implemented over the course of the next 18 months,” said Battista in a statement, before describing areas in which the company plans to invest for growth, chiefly: branded content, video, data, and brand extensions like the recently announced Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Enterprises.

As is customary, the company blamed changing consumer preferences, a spending shift among advertisers, exchange rates, changes to print magazine publishing schedules, as well as “public speculation about the ownership of the company and the trailing effect of the disruption from the reorganization of our advertising sales force,” for the declines.

Shares of Time Inc. initially fell about 9.2 percent to $12.53 Tuesday morning before rebounding, somewhat, back over $13 by midday. At press time, the company’s stock is down nearly 27 percent since the start of 2017.

“The third quarter represents an important turning point for the company as we are seeing strong momentum and sequential improvement of year-over-year trends for total advertising revenues,” added Battista in the statement.

While Battista was short on specifics regarding the company’s continuing rationalization of its cost structure, it’s not difficult to imagine where Time Inc. will aim to trim expenses, and where it intends to invest for growth. Just yesterday, the company launched PetHero, a subscription-based service for pet owners which the company identified, through analytics, as particularly attractive to its existing customer base.

In June, Time Inc. laid off about 300 staffers, a move Battista directly attributed to the company’s “rapid transformation in an industry undergoing dynamic change.” A month later, the company confirmed that it was considering selling off certain assets, including Essence, Coastal Living, Sunset, and Golf magazines.